Tacit
by Ceasefire
Summary: [JeanRoy, manga spoilers, future AU] Jean suffers, and his mother and Roy suffer with him through actions, not words. Some people just have to find their own way home.


No, I'm not dead! Just been busy with other things... I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. Beware of heavy manga spoilers and future AU.

* * *

_How many words in the language of Amestris?_ Jean had once asked his mother when he was young; when you were young, mother knew everything, had the answer to every question and the cure for every pain.

His mother had laughed and replied that she didn't know, and this was confusing to a child who could only press with further questions of "Why?" instead of accepting that the way things are is the way things are.

_Why don't you know, Mama?_

_I can't count that high,_ she replied, _So many words, so many different meanings... not one person will learn them all in their entire lives._

_But that's so long,_ Jean had insisted, because when you are young you feel invincible and you never realize it or say it out loud, but you see to have so much time to do everything you want.

_Normal people aren't capable of such things,_ his mother had replied, _You merely have to do the best you can._

Comparatively Jean had seen himself as a simple person, who enjoyed the plain creature comforts of existence and merely lived to the best of his ability. Perhaps the only thing that made him dig deeper into himself was Mustang.

Mothers never really changed; they still thought they knew what was best.

His mother had asked Roy not to do this, not to write to him or phone him unless it was urgent, because all she saw on her son's face was the feeling of pain and loss and utter uselessness. She thought it made him sad, but she had started to doubt herself when she realized how much the sense of still being wanted assuaged her son's life.

Every day, she would go into his old bedroom (the one he'd had as a child, and all of his toys were still there) and help him out of bed and into his wheelchair, would guide him around the delicate heirlooms left by his grandparents and to the breakfast table. She remembered that one time, he had simply stayed at the table the entire day for want of anything to do.

Then the letters had started coming; yellowed paper contained inside envelopes with the address hastily scribbled on in vivid red ink. At first, she had considered hiding the letters from Jean, but she could not deny her son's desperate longing for news of his comrades.

Jean never told his mother what was contained in the letters, and assumed that she thought that they were military matters that were none of her concern. Instead, they were small but vivid images of what had been, what Roy felt and knew and wanted and craved.

_It was hot as Hell there; Hughes once joked that if we ended up dead in action that they wouldn't have to embalm us for the funeral._

--

_The orders of transfer came in today. I thought my divine retribution had already been served in the form of you._

--

_The smell of tobacco isn't lingering around the office anymore. It's only now that I've really started to miss you, that I've really realized you're gone._

--

_Perhaps the realization didn't hit before. I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to sleeping with warmth against my skin._

Jean learned from these words, and constantly found himself retreating into the fine, looping lettering of Mustang's emotion.

These letters continued for two years, and Jean's mother found herself wanting to burn the words away when she found out that the last few letters had only contained simple expressions of _I miss you._

They only stopped when Mustang showed up on the doorstep one day, uninvited, thoroughly bandaged and wearing the stars of a leader.

She wondered if this was the first time her son had truly smiled since she had brought him back to her house; it wasn't 'his home' anymore, and soon she came to discover that perhaps that she herself, and Roy Mustang were her son's true homes.

Jean wasn't entirely sure what to say to Roy, so he pulled the man close and kissed him, and within that he hoped to imbue every emotion he was feeling upon the man.

_I can't fix you. I couldn't get... I'm sorry._

The blond smiled and held Roy close, unaware of his mother watching them around the doorframe.

_You've already healed me, as much as I can be healed._

_You're coming back to Central with me._

It was an order, not a request, and Jean was happy to follow it. For the second time since her son was paralysed from the waist down, she found herself packing his small suitcase of belongings and rearranging his room to exactly how it had been when he was the small child who fell asleep in her lap when she told him bedtime stories; stories that were really experiences of her life, knowledge that she hoped her son would pick up.

_Live earnestly, love honestly, and the key to happiness will always be found in your own hands._

One person's loss was another's gain, or so they said. Instead, a proud mother filled with happiness for her only son watched as he was pushed onto the train carriage by someone who loved him; in a different way to the way a mother loved her son and strived to protect him from all things that could do him harm but in a good way nonetheless. The woman waved and refused to cry as she watched her son's face beaming through the winder at her, a gloved hand resting gently upon his shoulder.

When she had asked if her son wanted to take the letters, he had told her that she could do with them what she wished. After reading them and learning the life and the knowledge of the man her son so dearly loved, she stacked the letters and threw them into the fireplace, watching the vivid red ink Mustang signed his letters with crackling and reacting to the flame.

It was a sign of finality; Jean was going home.

**END**


End file.
